TCP Over Wireless Ad-hoc

Networks
Vinay Sridhara
vsridhar@usc.edu
Nagendra Subramanya
nsubrama@usc.edu
In wired LANs, an address is equivalent to a
physical location. This is implicitly assumed in the
design of the wired LANs. In wireless, the
addressable unit is the station. The station is a
message destination, but not a fixed location.
Use a medium that has neither absolute nor readily
observable boundaries outside of which stations
with conformant physical transceivers are known
to be unable to receive network frames
Wired Vs Wireless
Continued..
They are unprotected from outside signals.
Have dynamic topologies.
They lack full connectivity and therefore the
assumption that one station can hear every other
station is invalid.
They have time varying and asymmetric
propagation properties.
802.11
Main purpose is to provide the MAC and physical
layer specification for wireless.
Permits the operation of an IEEE 802.11
conformant device within a wireless local area
network that may coexist with multiple
overlapping IEEE 802.11 conformant devices.
Describes the requirements and procedures to
provide privacy of user information being
transferred over the wireless medium and
authentication of IEEE 802.11 conformant
devices.
802.11 in ISO/OSI Model.
A few terminologies of 802.11
STA Any mobile, portable
or stationary terminal.
BSS Basic service set.
The BSS is an entity which
consists of several mobile
stations that can interact with
each other.
STA1
STA2
STA1
STA2
BSS1
BSS2
802.11 Components
Continued.
A BSS maybe comprised of only two mobile
stations.
This is called a IBSS (Independent Basic Service
Set).
This is the one that is called Ad Hoc Networks.
A network composed solely of stations within mutual
communication range of each other via the wireless
medium
network is typically created in a spontaneous manner
The principal distinguishing char of an Ad Hoc network
is its limited temporal and spatial extent
Continued.
Instead of existing
independently,
multiple BSSs may
form a network.
The architectural
component used to
interconnect BSSs is
the Distribution
system (DS).
The access points are
the stations used to
connect BSSs to DS.
Continued.
BSSs may generally
overlap to provide
continuous coverage
in physical volume.
The BSSs could be
physically disjoint.
Logically there is no
limit to the distance
between BSSs.
STA1 STA-C STA1
STA1 STA2
STA2 STA1
Continued.
ESS - The DS and the
BSSs allow the IEEE
802.11 to create a wireless
network of arbitrary size
and complexity.
Stations within an ESS
may communicate and
Mobile stations may move
from one BSS to another
transparently to LLC.
Extended Service Set
The stations communicate to Access points
which are part of a Distribution System
Access point serves the stations in a BSS
The set of BSSs are called Extended Service
Set (ESS)
Communication with external world
Portal Is the logical
point at which the MSDUs
enter and leave the IEEE
802.11 network.
This portal provides
logical integration
between the IEEE 802.11
architecture and the
existing wired LANs
The stations act as both
AP and portal when the
DS is a wired network.
The Big Picture
Services
The services provided by the 802.11 are divided
into two.
Those that are part of every STA, called Station
services
Authentication
De-Authentication
Privacy
MSDU Delivery
The services provided by the DS are known as the
Distribution system service.
Association
Disassociation
Distribution
Integration
Reassociation
MAC layer Services
Services provided by the MAC layer
Security Services
Security is provided by the WEP (Wired equivalent privacy)
The security provided is limited to Station-to-Station exchange
of data
The privacy service offered by the IEEE 802.11 WEP is the
encryption of the MSDU
The security services provided are
Confidentiality
Authentication
Access control in conjunction with layer management.
Continued.
Asynchronous data services
Provided by the following three primitives.
MA-UNITDATA.request generated by the LLC when an
MSDU is to transmitted to the peer LLC. The format is as
show below.
MA-UNITDATA.request
{
Source address,
Destination address,
Routing information,
Data,
Priority,
Service class
}
MA-UNITDATA.indication generated by the MAC sublayer
entity to indicate to the LLC the arrival of a MSDU.
MA-UNITDATA.indication
{
Source address,
Destination address,
Routing information,
Data,
Reception status,
Priority,
Service class
}
MA-UNITDATA-STATUS.indication - provides the LLC
sublayer with status information of the corresponding MA-
UNITDATA.request primitive.
MA-UNITDATA-STATUS.indication
{
Source address,
Destination address,
Transmission status,
Provided priority,
Provided service class
}
MAC header
The four address fields in the MAC header are used to
indicate the BSSID, Source address, destination address,
transmitting station address and the receiving station
address.
The frame control field has the following format
Collision Avoidance - 802.11
802.11 uses a protocol scheme know as carrier-sense,
multiple access, collision avoidance (CSMA/CA).
Avoidance scheme is used because it is difficult to detect
collisions in the RF media.
Hence is interoperates with the physical layer by sampling
the transmitted energy over the medium transmitting data.
The physical layer uses an algorithm for clear channel
assessment (CCA) to determine if the channel is clear.
If the received signal is below a certain threshold the
channel is declared clear.
Why Do We Need RTS/CTS ?
Used because of the Hidden terminal problem.
It occurs when there is a station in a service set
that cannot detect the transmission of another
station, and thus cannot detect that the media is
busy
Station C
Station A
Station B
What Does RTS/CTS Do?
Communications is established when one of the
wireless nodes sends a short message RTS frame.
The message duration is known as the network
allocation vector (NAV). This alerts to back off
during the transmission time.
The receiving station issues a CTS frame which
echoes the senders address and the NAV.
If the CTS frame is not received, it is assumed that
a collision occurred and the RTS process starts
over.
Characteristics of Wireless Networks
Limited bandwidth
High latencies and bit-error rates
Mobility
Difference between General wireless
networks and Ad-Hoc Networks ?
Absence of a central base station
Frequent route re-computation
Network partitions
Multi-path routing algorithms
What is an Ad-Hoc Network?
AD-HOC network is a collection of mobile nodes with wireless
network infrastructure capable of organizing themselves into a
temporary network without the aid of any centralized network
manager.
According to the IETF definition, a mobile Ad Hoc network is an
autonomous system of mobile routers (and associated hosts) connected
by wireless links--the union of which form an arbitrary graph.
AD-HOC Networks
SOURCE
DESTINATION
Implications of using Normal
TCP over Ad-Hoc Wireless N/W
TCP does not distinguish between congestion and
packet loss due to transmission errors and route
failures
This inability results in performance degradation
in ad hoc networks
Implications of using Normal
TCP over Ad-Hoc Wireless N/W
Route re-computation takes a finite amount of time
During this time no packet can reach the destination
through the existing route
Packets andACKsmay get queued and possibly dropped
In turn leads to timeouts at the source, which is
misinterpreted as congestion
Consequences
Source retransmits unACKedpackets
Invokes congestion control
Enters slow start recovery
These are undesirable because?
Why retransmit when there is no route
Retransmission wastes power and bandwidth
Low throughput as a result of slow start recovery after route restoration
(this is actually desirable. Why?)
Why use TCP at all in such cases ?
For seamless portability to applications like file
transfer, e-mail and browsers which use standard
TCP
Different approaches to improve the
performance of TCP over Ad-Hoc
Networks
Last hop wireless networks
I-TCP
Snoop TCP
M-TCP
Freeze-TCP
Ad hoc networks
TCP-F
ELFN
ATCP
Indirect TCP (I-TCP)
Connection between end points split into separate connections
+ No need of changes in TCP on wired hosts
+ Transmission errors on wireless link not propagated to wired network
+ Different optimal transport layer protocol between BS and MH
- Loss of E2E semantics of TCP
- Increased hand-off latency
- Copying overhead
Snoop TCP
BS caches packets from sender
Performs local re-transmissions
+ Preserves E2E TCP semantics
+ Only BS needs to be changed
- Doesnt isolate behavior of wireless link as good as I-TCP
- MH may need to be modified to accept NACKs
- Snooping and caching may fail if E2E encryption schemes are used
M-TCP
Same as I-TCP, but the BS is known as SH
SH holds back ACK to the last byte
Uses this ACK to freeze the sender when disconnection is detected
+ Maintains E2E semantics
+ Avoids useless re-transmissions and slow-starts
+ SH doesnt buffer data
- Needs a bandwidth manager to implement fair sharing over the wireless link
Freeze-TCP
The client freezes the sender when it detects possible hand-
off or predicts a temporary disconnection
+ No need of base station
+ Only mobile clients TCP needs to be changed
+ Can be used with encrypted data
- MAC has to detect future interruptions
- Freezing fails when encryption scheme uses timestamps
- Re-transmission restarted with old CWND
Network state after a while
SOURCE
DESTINATION
X
TCP-Feedback (TCP-F)
K. Chandran, S. Raghunathan, S. Venkatesan and R.
Prakash
TCP-F: Introduction
ECN is not used. Why?
Instead uses Route Failure Notification (RFN)
packet to inform source when route is disrupted
And Route Reestablishment Notification (RRN)
packet informs the source when route is
reestablished
TCP-F: Protocol
Failure Point (intermediate node) detects the route
disruption
Explicitly sends RFN to source and records the
event
Each intermediate node that receives the RFN:
Invalidates the particular route
If it knows of an alternate route, that route is used for
further communication and RFN is discarded
Else, RFN is propagated towards source
TCP-F: Protocol (contd.)
On receiving RFN, source goes into snooze state
TCP-F: Protocol (contd.)
Source when in snooze state
Stops sending further packets
All existing timers are marked invalid
Send window and other state variables (RTO, etc) are frozen
Starts a route failure timer whose timeout =worst case route
reestablishment time. Why?
Stays in this state till it receives an RRN packet
TCP-F: Protocol (contd.)
One of the intermediate nodes that had previously
forwarded RFN learns about a new route
Sends an RRN to the source
Further RRNsreceived by this node for the same source-
destination pair are discarded
Other nodes simply forward RRN towards the source
Source on receiving RRN
Changes to active state
Flushes out all unACKed packets in its current window
TCP-F: Conclusion
Communication resumes at the same rate as before the
route failure occurred
There is no unnecessary loss of throughput
Is this ok?
Use of an additional packet RRN. Is it really needed?
Simulation environment
Based on a simple one-hop network
Links failed/recovered according to an exponential model
Routing protocol was not simulated
TCP-F: Conclusion
Overhead on routers
Detect route failures and reestablishments
Provide feedback to the source
Store the source id after forwarding an RFN so that it
can send an RRN on finding a route
The paper does not discuss about multiple flows
Enhancements
Buffering at intermediate nodes
TCP with Explicit Link Failure
Notification (ELFN)
G. Holland and N.
G. Holland and N.
Vaidya
Vaidya
ELFN: Introduction
DSR complicates the situation stale routes may be
cached and propagated
Throughput is degraded
Turning of caching works only with single TCP connection
What if there are more sources?
ELFN
Similar to TCP-F
Expected throughput throughput of a static wireless
network
ELFN is piggy-backed toDSRsroute failure message
ELFN has a payload similar to that of host unreachable
ICMP message
ELFN: Protocol
TCP sender receives ELFN
Disables congestion control mechanism, enters stand-by
mode
Sends probes
On receiving an ACK for a probe, leaves stand-by mode
ELFN: Variations
Time interval between probe packets
greater it is, slower is the route discovery
smaller it is, causes congestion
best would be to have it as a function of RTT
ELFN: Variations
Adjusting CWND and/or RTO after route restoration
no changes
CWND =1
RTO =default initial value and CWND =1
Resetting RTO degrades throughput due to frequent route
breaks and ARPs tendency to silently drop packets
CWND = 1 caused no significant change, because optimal
window is relatively small
Things have improved now bandwidth/delay products are larger
ELFN: Variations
Choice of probe packet
First packet in congestion window
Lowest sequence numbered packet that was lost
indicated by ELFN
If forward and reverse routes are different , both
approaches are same
ELFN: Limitations
Base TCP outperforms TCP+ELFN on static networks
Why?
Slow-start results in high network buffer utilization
Causes large RTT =>large RTOs =>long timeouts =>bad
throughput
Abrupt reduction of CWND to 1 =>several RTTs before sender
reaches avoidance phase
CWND worth of data lost due to route failures. What if smaller
network buffers are used?
ELFN: Limitations
Channel characteristics of ad hoc networks
Available bandwidth is greatly reduced
Packets from same flow contend with each other
Every node gets a share of the channel based on the fairness
properties of the MAC layer
In static networks, channel contention results in frequent
false route error messages
Time wasted in computing new route => throughput
degrades
ELFN: Limitations
Even a single flow can create enough contention
Contention among data packets
Contention caused by ACK packets
MAC contention algorithm
TCPs saw-tooth behavior during congestion avoidance
In mobile scenario, there will be lot of high priority routing
packets in the network resulting in congestion
ELFN: Limitations
Large number of routing packets force TCP packets to
reside in network buffers for long intervals
Data packets can get delayed or dropped due to change in
network configuration.
Queue management is thus very critical
ELFN: Limitation Fairness Issues
One flow reduces its CWND, allowing another to maintain
a larger window and send more packets
Short range flows have fewer timeouts and a larger CWND
causing them to contend more aggressively.
Both ELFN and plain TCP result in unfair network
resource distribution due to congestion at intermediate
hops.
Rate control mechanisms are more suited for ad hoc
networks.
ELFN: Rate Control Methods
End-to-end rate control
could depend on network feedback
leads to large buffer buildups
longer flows reduce their sending rate when congestion is observed
in any part of the path
takes a few RTTs to adjust the outgoing rate
intermediate nodes dont store state of flows
ELFN: Rate Control Methods
Hop-by-hop rate control
each node individually controls the outgoing rates of all flows
prevents buffers from getting large
congestion causes only the immediate hop to reduce sending rate
more responsive to changes in connectivity , congestion or number of
contending nodes
can reduce number of packets stored at a disconnected node in a stale
route
ATCP TCP for Mobile Ad Hoc
Networks
J . Liu and S. Singh
ATCP TCP for Ad Hoc Networks
Thin layer between TCP and IP
Treats loss due to congestion and medium differently
Functions efficiently even with high bit error rates
Handles network partition gracefully
Maintains end-to-end TCP semantics ?
Modes of Operation
ATCP
Normal
Congested
Loss
Disconnected
TCP
Depending on its mode of operation ATCP sets TCP in one of the
following modes
Normal
Congested
Persist
Disconnected
Loss
Congested
Normal
Receive
Destination
Unreachable
ICMP
Receive
ECN
RTO About to
expire or
3 Dup ACKS
Receive DUP
ACK or
packet from
the receiver
New ACK
ATCP
Retransmits
segments in
TCPs buffer
TCP Sender put
in persist state
State transition diagram of ATCP
Comparison with ELFN and
TCP-F
Old CWND used One of the variations
suggests changing CWND
to 1
Reset for each new route CWND
Not handled Not handled Sender invokes
congestion control on
receiving an ECN
Congestion
Not handled Not handled ATCP reorders packets so
that TCP does not
generate duplicates
Packet reordering
TCP-F freezes sender
state
ELFN freezes sender state ICMP Destination
Unreachable puts sender
into persist mode
Network Partition and
Route Changes
Not handled Not handled ATCP retransmits, TCP
does not invoke
congestion control
Packet loss due to high bit
error rate
TCP-F ELFN ATCP Event
Some Issues
ECNs may not reach the sender
Sender keeps re-transmitting, congesting the network
further
When would this happen?
Possible solution
Issues
RTO generally indicates congestion more than
packet loss due to high BER
Why?
References
IEEE 802.11 Specifications
H. Balakrishnan, V. N. Padmanabhan, S. Seshanand R. Katz, A Comparison
of Mechanisms for Improving TCP Performance over Wireless Links,
IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 5, No. 6, December 1997.
K. Brown and S. Singh, M-TCP: TCP for Mobile Cellular Networks, ACM
Computer Communications Review, 1997.
T. Goff et al., Freeze-TCP: A True End-to-End TCP Enhancement mechanism
for Mobile environments, Proc. IEEE INFOCOM, 2000.
References
K. Chandran, S. Raghunathan, S. Venkatesanand R. Prakash, A Feedback-
Based Scheme for Improving TCP Performance in Ad Hoc Wireless
Networks, Proc. IEEE ICDCS, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 1998.
G. Holland andNitinH. Vaidya, Analysis of TCP Performance over Mobile
Ad Hoc Networks, Proc. IEEE MOBICOM, Seattle, Aug 1999.
J . Monks, P. Sinhaand V. Bharghavan, Limitations of TCP-ELFN for Ad
hoc Networks, MOMUC, Tokyo, J apan, October 2000.
J . Liu, S. Singh, ATCP: TCP for mobile Ad Hoc networks, IEEE J ournal of
Selected Areas in Communications, J uly 2001.
Thank you